Dry July makes for great fishingMick Morris | First Published: July 2014

July is just a wonderful time of year to head out to the ’Pin with cool clear days and light winds make for top fishing conditions.

The bream have been on the bite with great catches to be expected all winter long. Bream are one of the most prolific species throughout the Pin system and are relatively easy to catch, which should put them high on most fisho’s lists.

Using a simple running ball sinker set up to a swivel and about 40-60cm of trace to a 1/0 baitholder hook, you are now armed with one of the easiest and successful bait rigs that will not only catch you bream but most of the other species at the Pin as well.

Lots of different species will usually congregate in the same areas in deeper water around decent structure and eat the same sorts of baits, so it’s quite common to find a variety of by-catch.

Best baits to score yourself a feed are live yabbies, worms, mullet fillets and gut, prawns, squid, white bait and even bread balled up on your hook works well too. For bream you can’t go past the old favourite spots like Kalinga Bank, the dead trees off the bottom of North Straddie, the eastern tip of Crusoe Island, Short Island, Stieglitz, Flat Rock, the Stockyards, the Powerlines, the north wall of the Seaway and the mouth of the Pimpama River. These spots always produce good quality fish and there is even a pretty good chance that you could land a juvenile snapper there as well.

Flathead are being caught on soft plastics from the Pandannus weed banks, Whalleys Gutter mouth, the bottom of Kangaroo Island, the sand flats at the top of South Strddie and Kalinga Bank.

The water quality has been good so soft and hard lures have been working well. For the bait fishos pillies and big fresh prawns are the go and drifting seems to be the best method of tracking them down.

Some big elbow-slapper whiting have been caught from near Marks Rocks and Ageston Sands in the Logan River, Flat Rock, Slipping Sands and the Gold Bank. Trying these areas at night with some live bloodworms just as the tide turns and you should have yourself some decent whiting – if you can brave the cold! Stick with worms, yabbies or peeled prawns as bait. If the weather turns flat and calm, start flicking small poppers and minnows around the sand flats.

Tailor should be schooling up the coast feeding on the schools of whitebait, pilchards and hardiheads. They ball up these schools inside the bar to feed and smash them breaching the surface, which makes them fairly easy to spot. There’s nothing quite like being in a tailor feeding frenzy with the water literally boiling around the boat. If you head out during the week when there is less water traffic you’ll have a better chance of this happening.

For tailor I use the same size lures as the bait they are feeding on; usually 10-40g is the right size. Plastics get torn apart by tailor so unless you have an endless supply I’d stick to metal slugs. Other than that, try floating lightly weighted pillys or whitebait in the current and a cruising tailor should find it irresistible.

A few good sized school mulloway have been coming from the Logan near Marks and Pitts Rocks, Giants Grave and the Jew Hole off Swan Bay. Live mullet, gar and pike have been proving to be the pick of the baits when chasing a mulloway.

A few sandies have been potted from Cabbage Tree Point to the Powerlines and in Canaipa and Cobby Passage as well. Muddies are a little harder to come by so stick to the deeper drains at high tide, and get right into the mangroves as well to give yourself a chance at a feed.

Thanks for all you reports and if you need any up to date info on what’s biting drop me a line at Gem Bait & Tackle on 3287 3868 or email --e-mail address hidden-- I’ll catch you next month

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Nothing beats a good quality winter Jumpinpin lizard.

Cody lynch with a decent Logan River king threadfin salmon on a banana prawn.